A Garden Full of Saints and Sinners
by MissVictoriaRose
Summary: A dying wish granted, at the cost of what she treasures most. Petunia Evans is given a second chance to be everything she wasn't—a protector, a sister, a witch. Thrown back in time, in to a world she's never known, can she become the difference that changes Lily's fate?
1. A Wish

An empty home.

Every memory, every piece of furniture, every little knick knack packed away.

For twenty years this house had been my refuge from the world. Within these walls is where I raised my son, where I had cooked dinner and kissed my husband goodnight. I made it a home.

And now it's a home I'm forced to flee from in order to keep my family safe. What I wouldn't give for things to have gone differently.

"If they think for a moment that you know where I'm going, they'll stop at nothing to get that knowledge from you," his voice grave, a misplaced warning.

"Do you think I don't know what their capable of?" I said, "You didn't just loose a mother that night in Godric's Hallow, you know. I lost a sister."

A sister lost long ago, too soon laid to rest. A sister, who I put second to my own pride. A sister, who I'd give anything to hear laugh once again, to see her smile. A sister I miss.

An engine roars to life, shattering the silence and whatever else was held in it.

Harry, the nephew—my sister's son—nods his head goodbye.

Neither of us willing to actually say it.

There are so many things I would have done differently.

The car is running, but I don't move. I don't look away.

Those eyes, those broken green eyes, begging for something I never understood how to give.

He's _Lily's_ son, an orphan dropped off on my door step all those years ago. He was _her_ son. He deserved _her_. _Her_ and her unwavering _love_. How could _I_ ever have come close to replacing her? How could I have not even tried.

"I'm sorry," I whisper.

"Me too," he answers softly.

Neither of us move.

Light flashes outside.

The family car explodes.

I hear my son scream for his father, before going silent.

A voice, cruel and hard, bellows from the doorway "Well, well, well, what do we have here?"

Then, another, "Going somewhere, Potter?"

"How—" Harry's voice cracks. Black cloaked figures swarm the empty room. "How did you find me?"

"Really, it was too easy," a man hisses as he enters the living room. He is pale, a freakish grey color. He has no hair on his head and is missing nose.

"Voldemort," Harry snarls. The room becomes stifling.

The man who murdered my sister, has stepped foot in my home.

"Don't say his name!" a cloaked figured yells. Harry shifts closer to me. For his safety or mind, I don't know.

"Quaint place," Voldemort said, looking around the house.

"What do you want?" I ask.

"Harry Potter dead at my feet, by my hand."

I step forward, putting myself between Harry and this monster.

 _Lily, help me._

"You? A muggle, think you can stop me?" he laughs, so do the other cloaks surrounding us.

"I'm willing to try."

More lights flash, voices yell, Harry drags me to the ground.

 _Lily, save me._

I yank his arm, dragging him with me towards the kitchen.

Lights explode the cabinets as we pass. I shove him close to the wall crouching down next to him, with the fridge shielding us from the main battle.

More voices, more lights, one of the cloaked freaks collapses dead, less than a meter from us.

The colorful lights reflecting off of his gold chained necklace caught my attention. Harry sits shaking next to me. My mind unable to focus on a single thing that I could do, or say. We were going to die. This was it, and all I could focus on was that damn necklace.

A light hits the fridge, demolishing more than half of it.

I grab Harry, again, dragging him as I crawl towards the mudroom at the end of the kitchen.

As we pass the dead man, I take his necklace with me.

We crouch down, hiding behind the wall.

"Survive this," I growled shaking the arm of his that I still had a death grip on. "Do you hear me? You survive this. You survive this war, and you be happy."  
"We're getting out of this together," the boy foolishly replies.

Lights still flashing in the living room. The dead man's necklace weighing heavy in my hand. I can't bring myself to argue, to dash his naive hope. I couldn't, because I wish I was still able to hope like him.

I fiddle with the necklace. There is a pendant, it spins.

Light crashes through the wall we're hiding behind.

Harry aims his own wand through the hole, calling out his own spell.

He's fighting back, but I can hear the cloaks getting closer.

 _Lily, protect me._

More noises echo throughout the hollow house, more lights flash, destroying my home.

"Harry Potter!" Voldemort hisses. I turn towards him as he towers over Harry and I. His eyes glowing red, wand pointed at Harry. "This is where you die."

I move. Lights flash. Everything goes black.

For all my failures, for all I would do differently, I'd give anything for a second chance.

 _Lily forgive me._

* * *

Warm arms surround me. I can hear birds chirping. The smell of magnolia blossoms, wild daisies and pink _lilies_ wrap around me like a safety blanket. An overall comforting feeling of home wells up inside me.

"You're safe," Lily whispers rocking me back and forth, "I have you. Your safe."


	2. A Letter

"It was just a bad dream," my sister whispers, "Everything is okay. It's all going to be okay.

Lily. She is here. She's real.

"How?" I hear my own voice crack. _How did she know I needed her?_

"How did I know? You were tossing and turning like a wrecking ball," Lily jokes. It was then I realized how truly _young_ she currently is. "Come on, mum's making pancakes!"

She jumps up from my bed and is out the door before I could string a thought together.

Which left me alone, alone in my childhood room.

Looking around, it was the exact same from what I remembered, so perfect; clean white furniture, all of my clothes pressed and put away, not a thing out of place. It was both an easy comfort of normalcy and a painful reminder of what kind of person I was. It's all here, everything from my favorite yellow dress and cardigan that I wore to enroll at Queen Anne's Preparatory the day after I received a letter of rejection from Albus Dumbledore. The hair brush, that I threw at Lily in a fit of jealous teenage rage, laid innocently on the vanity. Then, there was the mirror. The mirror I sat in front of day after day, making sure I looked perfect, flawless, _normal_. The mirror that now tells me, I'm looking just as young as Lily.

"Petunia!" my mother yells from the kitchen, "Breakfast!"

I ignore the weirdness. I ignore that I'm back in my childhood home, that I sold after my parents died, without consulting Lily. I ignore that I look to be no older than 11, and oddly the same age as Lily. I especially ignore how real it all feels, to walk these halls, to talk to my family again—before life got to difficult. I do what I do best, I ignore it all.

"Finally, sleepyhead," Lily comments as I sit down at the kitchen table.

"Oh, hush you!" my mother admonishes. She's standing in front of the stove, wearing her favorite apron. She has a smudge of pancake mix in her red hair, and a bright smile lighting up her face.

"It's the weekend," dad says in between sips of coffee, "us sane folks sleep in."

He's reading the newspaper, as he always did every Sunday morning. He's a man of habit. He did the same thing week in and week out, never changing. It lingers from his military days. Lily's _uniqueness_ hit him almost as hard as it hit me, for no bigger reason then it just made life unpredictable. Ever since the letter, he never really knew how to act towards Lily. I knew that hurt her more than any words ever could.

"And what does that make the rest of us early risers?" mum asks with eyes full of mirth as she fluttered around the kitchen serving us chocolate chip pancakes. There was a grace to her, I always envied well into my adulthood, that a woman could only possess when she well and truly felt at home in her kitchen. Like a ballerina, she would dance between the stove, where the pancakes are cooking, plating them on the way to the table, to the sink, and to pantry, all while seeming to be floating on air.

"Wonderful company," dad says giving mum a kiss as she passes on her way to her seat.  
"Thanks for breakfast," Lily says.

"Yes, thanks mum," I agree.

We all dig in. It's delicious, just as I remembered it. Dad and I both cover the pancakes in powder sugar. Mum and Lily eat them plain. A comfortable silence settles over the table, everyone focusing on their own food. I take a moment to try to enjoy a meal with my whole family, to have them back, for my family to be whole once again.

At least, I try to, I can't shake the feeling like the pancakes are glaring up at me. This is all wrong. The sugar and chocolate are tasting guiltier than usual. On top of that, I'm pretty sure I'm dead. I stepped in front of Harry, taking a green light to the chest. There was darkness. I should be dead. But I'm not. I'm here, eating home made chocolate chip pancakes with my deceased family.

There is a knock at the door, no a tapping… at the window.

"Is that a bird?" dad asks looking over to the window by the sink.

"An owl, I believe," mum says as dad gets up.

My knuckles turn white clutching my fork. My bones grow heavy as a weight settles in my gut.

"It's carrying a letter," dad says.

I don't turn to look, even though mum and Lily do. I already know what the letter is and the news it holds. I just got her back, I'm not ready to loose her again. She can't go to that world, she'll just end up dead. _Again._ I can't let it happen. I just got her back. I'm not ready—

"Who's it from?" Lily asks as dad sits back down.

"An owl delivered a letter?" mum asks at the same time.

 _No. No, no, no._

"I don't know. Says it's from Hogwarts," dad says slowly, as if testing the name out.

 _Please, I don't want to loose my sister. Please, don't send her to where I can't follow, where I can't keep her safe. They'll be the death of her. Those freaks didn't deserve her the first time, and they don't deserve her now. Please, don't send her where I can't follow. I just want to keep her safe, to keep her alive._

"Hogwarts?" mum asks, sounding bemused.

 _Please._

"Yes, dear. Oh, look, there's two," dad says holding up a second letter.

 _No._


	3. An Alley

"Isn't that the school you were telling me about?" mum asks Lily. "The one that boy—"

"Severus," Lily supplies.

"Yes, is that the school he was talking about?" mum asks.

"Yes, it is," Lily says cheerfully. "He said I'd be getting a letter to attend the upcoming school year. He said it's a school for magic."

"Well," mum says unsure.

"There is one for you two, Tuney," Lily says, handing me my letter.

I take the letter with unsteady hands. The paper feels old. It grates against my finger tips, like a reminder of a childhood dream from another life. On the front is my name, written in perfect penmanship. On the back is the Hogwarts seal in wax.

"Aren't you going to open it?" Lily asks in childish excitement.

Her envelope already opened, with her letter already pulled out and read—now being passed from parent to parent.

I look back down at my envelope, the tangible proof of my own hypocrisy. Proof of past dreams granted. Proof that I am now one of them. I am magic. I am a freak. Breaking the seal and opening the letter, it's admitting to it, acknowledging it. What if I don't want to be? What if I want what I know? What if I want what is easy? Queen Anne's Preparatory, valedictorian, marrying my high-school sweetheart, and having a beloved son—a perfect life. All of that is dashed by this letter, this stupid letter, that I had long ago got over the anger and jealousy of not receiving. Yet, here it is, with its perfect penmanship of my name and its non proportionately sized wax seal. I made a life, a perfect life, without them, without magic. Why now? Why should I go there this time—

"Petunia?" my sister asks.

I look up, meeting her green eyes full of concern.

"Are you okay?"

"Yes, I'm fine."

Without looking down again, I break the seal, pulling out the letter.

"When do you want to go school supply shopping?" I ask.

"Whenever," she says with a shrug, looking at our parents. "Can Severus come with us?"

"I don't see why not," dad says.

"It would be nice to have someone there who knows a thing or two, at least," mum agrees.

* * *

Two hours, and a long lecture on not leaving our parents sight, later, we arrive at Diagon Alley.

"Wow, this is incredible," Lily says, her eyes lighting up with wonder as we all stare down the cobblestone pathway. The street is aligned with bizarrely colored shops, and equally weirdly dressed people.

"What's that?" Lily asks, pointing to the three-tailed four-legged tiny beast.

"It's a magical dog," Severus says.

"What's that?" Lily asks, pointing to a display window.

"It's a broom. You fly on it. It's also used in a wizard sport,"

"What is that?" Lily asks, pointing to the creatures guarding the wizard bank.

"It's a goblin," Severus explains at the same time mum tells Lily not to point. "They protect the gold inside the bank."

"Wow—" Lily mumbles.

"Let's go in, children," mum says, ushering us all inside.

Once through the doors, the wonder on Lily's face never ceased.

White marble floors ran down the main hall and up the walls. A big sparkling chandelier hung from the ceiling. Gold accented every crevice it could find. The whole building reeked of pretentious airs.

"Pardon us," mum begins, talking to the goblin teller, "we aren't from around here—"

"Muggles?" the goblin asks.

"Um," mum begins.

"not use to magic?" the goblin clarifies.

"Yes," mum says.

"Do you want to open accounts for whatever rug-rats you have, or are you just transferring money?" the goblin rudely asks.

"Um," my parents share a look, "I think we would like to open accounts for our two daughters."

"Requires 20 galleon minimum," the goblin says.

"Oh, how much is that in… muggle money?" mum asks.

"Ten pounds," the goblin answers.

"Oh, that's not too bad," mum says, looking to dad.

I see Severus pull on Lily's sleeve and motion towards the door.

"Um, mum, can Severus, Tuney, and I go explore the alley, while you and dad handle this?" Lily asks.

"Please?" I add.

"I don't see why not," mum says.

"Stay together, either at the clothes store or the wand store. We'll meet you there when we're done," dad says.

"Yes, sir," Lily and I say.

"Where to first?" Lily asks once we making it outside to the alley.

"Wands," Severus answers as I say, "Clothes."

Both of us turn to Lily.

"How about wands first, so we aren't rushed through shopping for clothes?" Lily timidly asks.

With a deep sigh, I agree.

 _'Ollivanders, maker of find wands since 382 BC'_ read the store front sign. It hangs on an old building, that had clearly seen better days.

I should have argued more. I should have known that anything that makes Severus Snape smile, should worry me.

"Now, what do we have here?" the old man asks looking from Severus to Lily to me.

"Hello, sir," Lily says. "We're here for our first wands."

"Yes, yes. Severus Snape, and the two Evans sisters."

"How did—" Lily begins.

"Wand arm?" the man asks.

"Left," Severus says once its clear neither Lily nor I were going to answer.

Tapes start flying around measuring Severus's arm, along with his height, shoulder to shoulder, and his nose.

"Interesting," the man says at he starts digging through the many boxes lining the back wall. "Here, this ought to do it. Fifteen and a half, ridged, made of hawthorn."

Severus pulls out a thin black stick out of the box. It looks shockingly ordinary.

The old man moves on to Lily, the measuring tapes following, as Severus waves his new wand around.

"For you, young lady," he asks as if it were a question.

"He's asking which arm you normally write with," Severus supplies.

"Oh, sorry. My right arm."

With a nod of his head the old man returns to the stacked boxes.

"What about you?" he calls out.

"Right, also, sir," I yell back.

"Simple enough," he says returning with two boxes.

He hands the first to Lily, "This one, ten and a quarter long, swishy, made of willow. It's excellent for charm work." The next one to me, "Thirteen inches, surprisingly swishy, made of cypress."

"Curious, very curious," the man says.

"What is curious?" Severus asks, adding, "sir," at Lily's glare.

"Interesting wood choices for the three of you," the man says. "Hawthorn, the wood of fitting contradictions. It can heal in equal power that it can harm. Willow, the wood of exceeding expectations. It will sever well those who seek advance knowledge. Cypress, the wand of nobility. It will sever the loyal and the brave-at-heart well."

Loyal and brave, two things that are certainly not synonymous with Petunia Evans. Yet, here I stand in this dirty wizard shop, holding this stupid wizard stick, with it's stupid gold shooting out the front. I have no want to be brave in a world on the break of war. I don't want to be noble. I just want to live. I just want Lily to live. Screw everyone else, how's that for noble?

"Clothes, then?" Severus asks.

"I can't wait to see what the school uniform looks like," Lily says, energetically bouncing out the door.

I follow, with the stupid noble wand still in my hand.


End file.
